Shh! Apple Still Secretly Supports Snow Leopard

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Apple pleasantly surprised a lot of long-time Mac users yesterday
(Sept. 20) when it pushed out a security update for Mac OS X 10.6
Snow Leopard. Based on Apple's history, many users had expected
support for the outdated operating system to cease now that OS X
10.8, or Mountain Lion, is here.

The move was unexpected because the Cupertino, Calif.-based
company usually only continues support for its two most recent
operating systems. Snow Leopard is now the third newest Mac
platform — ancient in the lightning-paced world of technology.

The decision to update Snow Leopard was likely spurred by the
fact that it's still so widely used. Had Apple not updated Snow
Leopard yesterday, 47 percent of Mac users would have been
running an unsupported
operating system. Because of the fix, that number is only
about 13 percent, Computerworld reports.

Mountain Lion (released in July) and Lion also received updates
yesterday. All told, the update included more than 30 security
patches, bug fixes and new features. Of those security holes, 25
were plugged in Snow Leopard.

Computerworld also pointed out that the last time Apple released
a security update for an operating system that was three
generations behind was in 2007, when OS X Panther was patched 19
days after Leopard was released.

Yesterday's Snow Leopard patch came eight weeks after Mountain
Lion's debut. Although Apple won't comment, that could indicate
continued support for Snow Leopard for the foreseeable future.
Only CEO Tim Cook knows.